This includes educating referral sources about the prodrome, training and maintaining triage staff and conducting rapid, low threshold evaluations of referrals.
This June, researchers from the Vermont Center for Justice Research published an evaluation of Rapid Referral.
According to Van den Bulte, this is the first study ever published on the financial evaluation of customer referral programs.
A routine clinic (RC) comprehensive evaluation of each referral, was compared to the AM for waiting time, charges for patients, reimbursement to the center, and parents' and professional trainees' satisfaction.
Evaluation of these referral management interventions however presents challenges for systematic review methodologies.
The literature centred on physical activity promotion has advocated the relevance of theory to the design, delivery and evaluation of exercise referral schemes [ 14].
Primary care commissioners should consider these findings while awaiting further trial evaluation of exercise referral schemes and other primary care interventions, with longer follow-up and use of objective measures of outcome.
Sowden and Raine [ 4] concur with our findings by arguing that the experimental evaluation of exercise referral in England is now unlikely because of the widespread assumption of effectiveness, the comprehensive coverage of the schemes, the indirect adverse consequences of dismantling the schemes, and the lack of appropriate process and outcome data.
Dugdil et al. [ 17] conducted a critical review of the development, impact and evaluation of exercise referral schemes and found that adherence rates were 35 45% and, although physiological changes were statistically significant, the magnitude of change was not sufficient to convey any health benefits.
It is conceivable that referrals that are more pleasing to the hospital consultant may give a false sense of precision in the evaluation and prioritisation of referrals.
